Using Repeat Photography to Map Environmental Hazards

Purpose:
Students will utilize technology to map the changes that have occurred in their communities and measure the lasting impact of the region's industrial past.

Preface:
Class discussions about tangible, lasting impacts of industry on local communities and ecosystems. Students will conduct interviews with parents and grandparents to record changes they have witnessed since they were in school. Back in class, we will compare interviews in an attempt to establish a consensus about negative impacts the coal, steel and logging industry have left on the region.

Final Project:
Students will maintain a class blog and wiki with historical photos adjacent to recent photos and explanations of the effects seen in the photo comparisons.


Procedure:
Students will collect historical photographs of the local region from public sources, attempt to record locations using Google Earth and create an image database that the class can access.

The class will utilize historical image locations closest to school property to practice framing images and taking images in a controlled, supervised setting. Then, students will be assigned additional images based on where they live.

Students will use image processing to prepare photos for publication of blog and wiki. Images will be uniformly cropped and edited for contrast, brightness, etc, so that the wiki and blog have the appearance of a professional publication.

Students will maintain blog, encouraging parents, relatives and friends to view and comment on photos. Wiki and blog will be developed with the intention of being continued by later classes and viewed as a resource by the local community.

Skills Development:
Students will:
Integrate technology into a cross-disciplinary activity, practicing and utilizing skills for digital image taking, processing and publishing, and creating and maintaining blogs and wikis.

Provide a community resource by cataloging and maintaining an online database of image comparisons.

Apply scientific concepts to the study and understanding of the community in which they live.

Practice positive communication and team skills.


Career Connections:
Journalism, photography, environmental sciences, geographer, advertising, marketing, graphic artist, web developer, hydrologist, forester, climatologist, sociologist.